Tim O’Connor
“Freaky” was the operative word in Aaron Dunn’s post-race interview after Bondi Lockdown won a classic VHRC Caduceus Victoria Sires Classic on Saturday night.
Despite enduring a tough run after a failed attempt for the lead, Dunn’s charge prevailed in an epic battle between three-year-olds at Bendigo’s Lord’s Raceway.
The Somebeachsomewhere colt, who drew wide on the back row, just held out a fast-finishing Better Eclipse, with Tuppence running third from a wall of rivals.
So competitive was the race, just five-and-a-half metres covered the first six horses across the line.
“His trackwork since his last win at Ballarat was really freaky, so that sort of gave me the confidence to have a crack for the front,” Dunn said.
Dunn, who owns, drives and trains the horse, is full steam ahead to key races such as the Downbytheseaside Victoria Derby during October and Alabar Vicbred Super Series later in the year.
“I’ll probably just not race him as much from now until the Derby, but maybe keep him in. I’ll just have to have a think about it,” said the Horsham-based horseman, who took Bondi Lockdown to Queensland during July.
“I think those few runs, it gets him at his best, so that’s where it might be better to keep him rolling without taxing him too much.
“But like I said, he does freaky things… He just runs freaky times then pulls up good.”
Bondi Lockdown is already a Group 1 winner, having taken out the VHRC Caduceus 3YO Classic in January, and builds on a career record that now stands at seven wins from 19 starts.
She was somewhat the forgotten horse in a stunning TAB Sumthingaboutmaori Trotters Free For All (2150m), but the giant that is Sleepee was awoken on Saturday night.
The Alison Alford-trained mare hadn’t raced for over a month and was given a quiet drive by her husband Chris, who sat back and watched it all unfold from the rear of the field.
But when it came time to go, she sprouted wings and rounded up her rivals to score by 3m on the line.
Anton Golino’s less-fancied runner Imsettogo ran a gallant second, with David Aiken’s consistent squaregaiter Aldebaran Crescent more than 7m away in third. Favourite Im Ready Jet could only manage fourth, with the well-fancied Aldebaran Tess galloping at the start and finishing a long last.
Sleepee, who drew gate eight, clocked a mile rate of 1:57.0 after closing quarters of 29.2 and 29.4.
“She just needed a few adjustments from the chiropractor and she just had a quiet week. It seems to have done her good,” Alford said of the dual Group 1 winner’s mini break.
“She races really well fresh and she’d worked really well at home leading up to tonight.”
Cover Of Darkness was back to winning ways with a bullish performance in the Dynamic Print Group Trot (2150m).
Emma Stewart’s quirky but uber-talented squaregaiter had a few people coy on his chances from a tricky barrier eight draw, but driver David Moran delivered a perfect steer to win the race by 5.8m.
Moran extricated the horse off the inside early, sent him surging forward to find the lead at the bell and then controlled the battle to prevail over Havehorsewilltravel and Robbie Royale.
The son of Majestic Son has now won 10 of his 13 career starts, with prizemoney soaring past $100,000.
His win was the first of three on the night for Stewart, who prepared Struve to take out the Benstud Standardbreds Pace (1650m) and Yianni for triumph in the Group 3 Alabar Vicbred Championship Final (2150m).
Alford also scored a treble after winning drives aboard Imperial Whiz in the DNR Logistics Trot (2150m) and Terrorleen in the IRT Australia Pace (2150m), while Moran collected a bag of three after steering Allset in the Logical Staffing Solutions Pace (2150m) on top of his wins with Cover Of Darkness and Yianni.
